Wagha Border

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was in Amritsar. We have VIP treatment. it was awesome. I'll definitely get some better pictures up later once I get some of natalies photos.

 

 

 

The Bahai Lotus Temple and Agra Fort

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll write about this shortly

Taj Mahal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went on a tour to the Taj Mahal by myself. Besides it being a 20 hour tour in the end, I had a good time and made some new friends.

We went to Agra fort first where it was raining profusely. Things then dried up a bit, we went to lunch and a tacky touristy shop, then to the Taj Mahal. The cost of one foreigners ticket vs 1 local ticket was out of control. A local ticket is 20 rupees (50 cents) a foreigners price is 750 rupees ($20). Not cool.

 

The sites were worth it.

One of my new friends told me there was a huge Yanni concert there a few years ago. Here is a clip:


After the Taj Mahal or the tribute to love, we went on to the Lord Krishna's birthplace. Which was really interesting. We were stuck at a train crossing for 3 hours so that made it less exciting for me and since we were so late, we only had 15 minutes before the temple closed. We therefore RAN from one place to the next following our tourguide. Hinduism is a religion that I don't understand as much but the temple was really beautiful, pretty clean, and festive.

Lord Krishna was born and then on his birth night his father carried him in a dream to a land that is about 50 km away to be raised there. He is blue and created a mountain with his little finger.

Salwar Suits

 

Just another shot of us looking awesome. I'll throw in some pictures from my latest jaunt next.

My blog lag

I've been horrible at blogging lately. But, I'm going to wash my hands of the past week with a link to Ambers blog. She explains things really well, I mean, she got her masters at harvard afterall. So, go here to get some more fun in India stories. I'll do better and update soon.

http://yikesanj.blogspot.com/

Rockin the Stache

A couple weeks ago in an auto home, marie, mandy, and natalie were discussing the mustache phenomenon here. Natalie threw out that an estimated 80% of guys have a 'stache. Mandy refuted her claim and was adamant about only about 20%. So, they did a random sampling and for the rest of the ride home had one count mustaches and one count shaved to get a percentage.

Turns out that 72% of men over 18 have mustaches.

I love it.

The man on the side of the road who always has business trimming peoples mustaches without any overhead of a shop rent, will probably stay busy and continue to make pure profits in the time to come.

Incredible India

That is the slogan of the country I'm in right now. Sometimes I feel a part of it, and other times I think I'm being rejected by it on all fronts. I am back to sleeping in my good old non AC and very little natural air circulation room. I started last night and am back in tonight. It was warm last night and I couldn't stop thinking about inception, and feeling sick, so I didn't sleep very well last night and tonight the power has been spotty which means, when ours goes out, the warm air in my room sits still and the generator next door kicks in. Every time it does I try to convince myself it is soothing, it's really just loud jagged noise, including a sporadic clamoring-pots and pans hitting together-sounds for added gusto. Anyway, that on top of the mosquito bites and potentially bed-bug bites, a mouse that we found inside yesterday, and me not feeling super awesome is going to make for a very un-restful sleep.

July 19, 2010

Kerala

I had an amazing time in Kerala a week and a half ago. It's the only democratically elected communist state. I am pretty sure it's where the jungle book was set.

Locked out

Our front door is locked by a big padlock we keep with a metal clasp. It’s rare that everyone is out of the house with random sicknesses and people working on projects from home but a few nights ago we did all leave together. We went down our crowded and always wet with something street and grabbed some dinner. I had another errand to run so when I came back to the apartment everyone else was standing outside the door in the dark. They told me that we are locked out. I didn’t get it until they explained that the lock by the doorknob shut. I went downstairs to our landlord and of course, they didn’t have a key. All of our doors and windows are barred and we do have a back door with a key hangng about 15 feet away on a string.
So, here is what happened.